Campaign news

Women hunger strikers under threat of deportation

23rd February 2010

Over 22 women are still on hunger strike in Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre. Five are on suicide watch and one has been taken to health care after self-harming. At least eight women have been threatened with removal since the start of the hunger strike on 5 February. Four women were transferred to prison. Three women have managed to stop their removals and others are in the process of doing so with the help of supporters and lawyers. At least five women have been released. Some have been referred to lawyers because they suffered violence and racist abuse from guards or because their detention is illegal.

John McDonnell MP, LRC Chair who has today written to Justice Minister Jack Straw and Immigration Minister Phil Woolas, said:

“That these women have been driven to make the only form of protest left available to them - to risk their own lives in the pursuit of justice and dignity - is a testament to the inhumanity and barbarism of immigration detention.

“We urgently need an investigation into the alarming reports and allegations of mistreatment and clarification at all the women’s well being.

“Hidden away and out of sight thousands of migrants are being imprisoned and degraded - many of whom are victims of torture and abuse. This Government’s appalling treatment of people who have simply moved from one country to another is a disgraceful mark of shame on UK’s human rights record. The true measure of a civilised society is how it treats some of its most vulnerable members.”

John McDonnell has tabled EDM 919 ‘Hunger Strike at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre’

You can help:
a) Write to Minister of State Phil Woolas MP (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to condemn the detention of victims of rape and other torture, of mothers separated from their children and anyone who does not face imminent removal. Such detention flouts international conventions and UK immigration rules.

b) Write to women inside. (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you can write to women who want to receive letters. Remember, the first people killed in the concentration camps were those that got no mail.  Help ensure the guards and the government know that women are not forgotten. 

c) Help find legal representation for women to lodge or appeal an asylum claim.  Most women don’t have lawyers or their lawyers do nothing. Some demand extortionate fees. Most women’s cases are not “straightforward” so many lawyers won’t take them.  Legal aid cuts have reduced the paid time that lawyers can spend on each case.

d) Money to pay for phone calls to keep in touch with lawyers and supporters. We are sending £10 in to a limited number of women to pay for phone costs.

The All African Women’s Group (AAWG) and Black Women’s Rape Action Project (BWRAP) need help.  With Women Against Rape, we are now working flat out to try to stop women being removed.  For two weeks we have been taking and returning calls to over 20 women a day (calling out from Yarl’s Wood is very expensive).  We are regularly posting updates, and faxing legal and other information in to women. AAWG is unfunded and BWRAP operates on a shoestring budget.  Any help to cover the costs of these expenses will be gratefully received. 

Email: AAWG: (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  BWRAP: (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Crossroads Women’s Centre
230a Kentish Town Rd
London NW5 2AB
020 7482 2496 / 07980659831

All women have compelling cases to be released because they are: mothers separated from their children; survivors of rape and other torture, detained contrary to Home Office rules; not facing imminent removal.